The competitive environment of a service industry: the examples of the U.K.-Continent passenger sea ferry services

The paper examines an international service sector (passenger sea ferry services between the U.K. and continental Europe) from the perspective of its competitive environment. Porter's five forces model forms the basis of the analysis of the market illustrated by recent develoments. Within this context the barriers to entry into and exit from the market are considered in detail. Recently, there have been many changes in market structure, and with increased competition, including that from the Channel Tunnel, it may be necessary to pool services. This will improve ferry competition with other forms of transport, but will require the brand awareness of ferries to shift from the ferry company to the ferry service offer. The service offer will need to be more clearly defined.     

A multioutput cost function for the services of Spanish ports' infrastructure

A long run multioutput cost function for the infrastructure services of Spanish ports is estimated using 286 observations on 26 ports during 11 years. Cargo specific marginal costs and the degree of economies of scale and scope are calculated up to a port level. Results show that liquid bulk and non-containerised general cargo present the lowest and largest marginal cost, respectively. Increasing returns to scale are present in general and for each and every port. A scope analysis indicates that port specialisation is not appropriate from the viewpoint of infrastructure.     

Approach to assess a fast welding simulation in an industrial environment — Application for an automotive welded part

Fusion welding processes are widely used for joining metal structures, such as pipes, ships, and cars. In general, these joining processes offer a very good compromise between reliability, safety, cost and maintenance which are important issues in the current economical context. The negative heat effects of welding, i.e. distortions and residual stresses of the welded parts, are well known and many researches in this field have already been done in the last decades in order to minimize them. On the experimental side, many sophisticated procedures have become state of the art to deal with this problem. On the computational side, the improvement of the simulation algorithms and the computing power enables the simulations of many physical phenomena occurring during the welding process. The implementation of welding simulation techniques is nevertheless not an easy task and often associated with expert knowledge which hinders their global application in an industrial environment. This paper is focused on the industrial requirements of a welding simulation software with special respect to the needs of the automotive industry. The necessary information to run a welding simulation and the expectations of a weld specialist without deep knowledge in numerical methods are investigated. These expectations are tested on an automotive welded assembly with a commercially available welding simulation software designed especially for the needs of the automotive industry. A welding experiment is done and the measured temperature distributions and distortions serve as reference to validate the simulation results. The result quality of the simulations of temperature fields and distortions is in best agreement with experimental data. The workflow is well adapted for the considered industrial requirements and the time-tosolution as well as the computational costs are acceptable, whereas the efficient calibration of the heat input model is still a point which will be further investigated in current and future research works.     

基于FPGA的MVB1类设备网卡的设计

考虑到MVB1类设备网卡支持简单的过程数据传送(功能代码为0～4)和设备状态响应(功能代码15)，不支持消息数据、过程数据强制功能的情况，提出利用FPGA(现场可编程门阵列)开发MVB1类设备网卡。这样，在完成通信功能的同时，可以无需外加CPU即完成一些简单的IO、AD等功能，也可以设计出总线方式与CPU相连。实践证明MVB1类设备网卡采用PC104接口与宿主CPU连接，具有110个256位的过程数据通信能力；用FPGA开发MVB1类设备网卡比用MVBC芯片更具优势。     

Offshore export versus in situ fractionated mineralization: a 1-D model of the fate of the primary production of the Rías Baixas (Galicia, NW Spain)

A linked hydrodynamic mineralization model is described and used to evaluate offshelf fluxes and fractionated mineralization of particulate phytogenic materials in the coastal upwelling system of the Rías Baixas (NW Spain), under three different typical situations of the upwelling season. The simulations made indicate that the intensity of upwelling controls: (a) net community production (NCP); (b) particulate organic matter (POM) accumulation; (c) in situ mineralization; and (d) matter export in the ‘Rías Baixas.’ Under strong upwelling conditions, there is an important horizontal offshelf flux, having only a small mineralization effect on NCP; if weak upwelling conditions are simulated, POM export is dramatically reduced and in situ mineralization is significantly enhanced; finally, under average upwelling conditions, the offshelf export of POM is about one third of the POM accumulation inside the domain, evidencing its importance in the productivity enhancement of near-shore areas. According to our sensitivity tests, the net vertical velocity (water velocity plus sinking velocity) has a critical role in the C/N/P stoichiometry of POM.     

Turbulence in coastal fronts near the mouths of Block Island and Long Island Sounds

Measurements of turbulence were performed in four frontal locations near the mouths of Block Island Sound (BIS) and Long Island Sound (LIS). These measurements extend from the offshore front associated with BIS and Mid-Atlantic Bight Shelf water, to the onshore fronts near the Montauk Point (MK) headland, and the Connecticut River plume front. The latter feature is closely associated with the major fresh water input to LIS. Turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation rate, ε, was obtained using shear probes mounted on an autonomous underwater vehicle. Offshore, the BIS estuarine outflow front showed, during spring season and ebb tide, maximum TKE dissipation rate, ε, estimates of order 10^− 5 W/kg, with background values of order 10^− 6 to 10^− 9 W/kg. Edwards et al. [Edwards, C.A., Fake, T.A., and Bogden, P.S., 2004a. Spring–summer frontogenesis at the mouth of Block Island Sound: 1. A numerical investigation into tidal and buoyancy-forced motion. Journal of Geophysical Research 109 (C12021), doi:10.1029/2003JC002132.] model this front as the boundary of a tidally driven, baroclinically adjusted BIS flow around the MK headland eddy. At the entrance to BIS, near MK, two additional fronts are observed, one of which was over sand waves. For the headland site front east of MK, without sand waves, during ebb tide, ε estimates of 10^− 5 to 10^− 6 W/kg were observed. The model shows that this front is at the northern end of an anti-cyclonic headland eddy, and within a region of strong tidal mixing. For the headland site front further northeast over sand waves, maximum ε estimates were of order 10^− 4 W/kg within a background of order 10^− 7–10^− 6 W/kg. From the model, this front is at the northeastern edge of the anti-cyclonic headland eddy and within the tidal mixing zone. For the Connecticut River plume front, a surface trapped plume, during ebb tide, maximum ε estimates of 10^− 5 W/kg were obtained, within a background of 10^− 6 to 10^− 8 W/kg. Of all four fronts, the river plume front has the largest finescale mean-square shear, S² ~ 0.15 s^− 2. All of the frontal locations had local values of the buoyancy Reynolds number indicating strong isotropic turbulence at the dissipation scales. Local values of the Froude number indicated shear instability in all of the fronts.     

Editorial: Young maritime researchers—a note of respect

Globalization, liberalization, competition and spatial interaction are significant factors affecting the transformation of manufacturing industries worldwide. In the transportation and logistics industry, however, cooperation is becoming even more critical than competition in determining firms' efficiency. Cooperation has always characterized the liner sector in which strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions have generated twin effects: notable increases in ship size and falls in freight rates. Meanwhile, the stevedoring industry is undergoing privatization-driven consolidation and the emergence of global pure terminal operators. This article focuses on vertical integration between global carriers and terminal operators. We address the following key current issues: 1. dedicated terminals as a strategy for cutting costs and controlling integrated transport chains;

2. the struggle for supply chain control, involving global carriers versus global terminal operators, driven by financial power and technical and managerial capability.

We close analysing one of the core problems of the market, namely the evolving role of the dedicated terminals. For the pure stevedores they represent an opportunity to secure a cargo, while in the hands of the liners they enable cost stability and the possibility to put pressure on pure terminal operators.     

Some aspects of cruise ships

Historically there have been only two groups involved in the conflict that has engulfed the US maritime industry for the past fifty years maritime labour unions and shipping companies. The configuration of these groups at different times in this struggle, has led to distinct periods of conflict in the industry. This paper analyses the basis and continuation of the problem.     

A system for determining economic loss associated with estuary degradation

Abstract

This article suggests a method of estimating economic losses for estuary‐dependent faunal species under conditions whereby the impact of a given degrading development on a particular estuary has a significant degree of uncertainty associated with it. The approach draws on standard theories from a variety of disciplines to provide an operational procedure capable of joint application by biologists, economists, and other related disciplines with working responsibility in the subject area. Consideration is given to probability estimation of possible impacts, sensitivity to underlying assumptions, and decisional safety under conditions of uncertainty. Applied results are demonstrated in a simulation of a negative developmental impact on the estuary‐dependent salmon resources of the Fraser River in British Columbia.     

Impact of freshwater on a subarctic coastal ecosystem under seasonal sea ice (southeastern Hudson Bay, Canada). I. Interannual variability and predicted global warming influence on river plume dynamics and sea ice

Analysis of sea ice cover, runoff and air temperature observations in Hudson Bay shows marked interannual variability. This variability is thought to play a major role in determining overall productivity of the coastal ecosystem by changes to river plume extent, under-ice light conditions and nutrient levels during spring. Extensive field work off the Great Whale River in southeastern Hudson Bay has shown the importance of freshwater discharge, sea ice cover and meteorological forcing on the production of under-ice microalgae and the success of first feeding in fish larvae.Recent global climate model (GCM) results for a doubling of present atmospheric carbon dioxide indicate increases of both air temperature and precipitation in the Hudson Bay area. Predictions based on GCM results are used to estimate future changes to the sea ice and runoff regime. Sea ice breakup in the offshore is predicted to occur about one month earlier than presently. Estimates of the spring freshet in the Great Whale River indicate it will also advance by approximately one month. Onset of the spring freshet will occur about one month before Hudson Bay ice breakup, similar to present. A predicted reduction of about 35% in maximum sea ice thickness will lead to an increase in the ice-ocean interface irradiance and a decrease in melt water input to the Hudson Bay surface waters. These results are used in a discussion of potential effects of global climate change on northern coastal marine environments.